‘Lightyear’ has not been the first: the other homosexual kisses you have seen in children’s cartoons

We are not going to include all the gay characters, nor the winks to the community LGBTIQ +, something that would give for another (very long) report. No. Here we will talk about kisses on the animated screen, about sets of pixels characterized as people of the same sex kissing with unmistakably romantic intentions. The most recent (and so controversial that it has caused some cinemas in Peru to include a warning of dubious taste about it) is the one shared by Commander Alisha and his wife Kiko in Lightyear. It’s a quick, everyday kiss that you’ll miss if you blink at the wrong time. But, apparently, it has been enough to infuriate some people.

Curiously, this is not even the first gay kiss that Pixar draws. In 2020, the company dedicated its short Out (in Spanish, Leave) to the story of Greg, a young man who knows that the time has come to tell his parents that he is homosexual and, incidentally, introduce them to his boyfriend, Manuel. The story included a kiss between the two and on the big screen.

That shared moment between Greg and Manuel was Pixar’s first gay kiss. But his parent company, Disney, had already taken some steps in that direction. In fact, he showed his first homosexual kiss in 2017, although it was difficult to detect, since it took place in an auditorium full of people kissing. It was in Star vs. the forces of eviland so you don’t have to scan the whole series (or the whole scene) we show it here.

Three years later, in the series owl house the mouse company took a giant step and was brewing chapter by chapter a enemies-to-lovers manual… and between two girls. At the end of the second season, the protagonist of the series, Luz, shared a romantic kiss with her rival turned friend turned girlfriend, Amity. And this time it happened in the foreground and between two main characters.

But the universe of animation goes far beyond Disney. And, in fact, they often have the strongest stride when it comes to portraying inclusivity, showing not just kisses, but complex stories between people of the same gender. One of the most loved romances by children and adults is undoubtedly that of princess bubblegum and vampire marcelineof Adventure Time, which included, of course, a kiss between the ladies in love. But it may be that in the nuclear post-apocalypse, the affection between girls does not attract so much attention. Let’s go then to a crazy housea much more realistic series (well, about as realistic as it gets for a family with 11 kids to survive from day to day). One of Lincoln’s sisters, Luna, came out as bisexual in an episode where she confessed her crush by Sam… who was a girl, as we discovered at the end of the chapter; the event took place, by the way, without Luna’s siblings or parents raising an eyebrow about it.

One step further was the series Steven Universewhich showed the first lesbian wedding of children’s animation: Ruby and Sapphire celebrated their love in broad daylight and in front of all their loved ones, and the kiss with which they sealed their romance touched our hearts. the canadian Arthur also made history with a gay wedding, that of Mr Ratburn and Patrickbut did not get to show the nuptial kiss.

However, if a series takes all tens of the inclusion, that is the dragon prince. His star couple is made up of the queens Annika and Neha: monarchs of Duren, experienced warriors and married couples in love like the first day. They are not the only gay couple in the series: the elves Runaan and Ethari They are also among our favorites.

There are more examples (and many more if we talk about animation for adults: Marge and Smithers in The SimpsonScandal and Knockout in suicide squad, Herbert Garrison in South ParkTodd in bojack horseman…). Interestingly, Western society hasn’t fallen apart every time two same-sex animated characters lock lips on screen. Maybe because it doesn’t happen when they do it in real life either.